The 43-year-old author of the historical mystery "The Midwife's Tale" never dreamed of writing a novel. Then, about two years ago, the idea struck him. Six months later, it was written. And Jan. 8, Thomas' tale of a sleuthing midwife in 1644 York, England, hit the shelves of libraries and bookstores nationwide (Minotaur Books, 320 pp., $24.99).

During that same time frame, Washington, D.C., native Thomas also gave up a tenure-track teaching job at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, moved to Shaker Heights and began teaching high school history at University School in Hunting Valley.

COMING UP

Sam Thomas readings

When: 1 p.m. Saturday

Where: Fireside Bookshop, 29 N. Franklin St., Chagrin Falls.

When: 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, part of the "Dead of Winter, A Celebration of Mystery Writing" event.

Where: Loganberry Books, 13015 Larchmere Blvd., Cleveland.

When: 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20.

Where: Bertram Woods Library, 20600 Fayette Road, Shaker Heights.

"I was looking for a community-oriented environment," says Thomas of his decision to move from college to a secondary school, and from Alabama to Cleveland. "I'd been teaching at a pretty big school, teaching kids whom I never saw again. There was not the sense of community you get at University School."

Growing up in the nation's capital, Thomas attended the prestigious Sidwell Friends Day School, also attended by generations of the Washington elite, including the children of presidents Barack Obama and Theodore Roosevelt.

"I was looking for that type of school experience," says Thomas.

Making this move required giving up some of the perks of academia, however. Namely, paid research time. And this, in a roundabout way, led to Thomas' entry into the world of fiction.

"I knew I wanted to continue to write when I left the university," he says, "but I also knew I wouldn't be able to take a year off to go to England [to do scholarly research]. And writing fiction didn't require research, so I could rely on my previous knowledge and make stuff up!"

Well, not exactly make stuff up. Thomas has spent decades doing research on 16th- and 17th-century England, the English Civil War and midwifery in England.

His expertise served him well in his debut novel.

"I'm trying to be faithful to the time," he says.

It was a happy accident that led to Thomas' scholarly interest in midwives, which eventually led to his novel's heroine, Bridget Hodgson, based on a real midwife of the same name.

"I stumbled across a fascinating midwife while doing research on a totally different project. . . . I found the will of this woman [the real Hodgson], who was rich and educated and a midwife. Like many, I originally had the wrong idea of what midwives were like. I thought they were poor and ignorant.

"But as I worked with her historically, I learned this wasn't true."

At a crowded reading to about 90 patrons at the Beachwood branch of the Cuyahoga Public Library this month, Thomas told the audience that "midwives were quite influential and really well-respected in their communities. . . . And they make excellent detectives, because they know the secrets of everyone, and they're part of local government and law enforcement."

Midwives, as Thomas discovered, had the power to investigate crimes including rape and infanticide, as well as helping birth babies.

Bridget makes full use of these powers in Thomas' book.

Once he had his heroine, Thomas again dusted off his historical knowledge to come up with a setting.

He placed the fictional Bridget in the midst of the English Civil War in the city of York.

"Half of the year the city was under siege -- there was this external pressure with the city being shelled constantly . . . the clock is ticking, so they have to find the killer now."

The backdrop provides high drama for Bridget's investigation of a friend accused of murdering her husband.

During the course of her investigation, she also takes time to birth babies, help bury babies and investigate other crimes with the help of her maidservant.

It all makes for a fascinating, proto-feminist tale.

So fascinating, in fact, that the first sentence hooked Thomas an agent in a matter of weeks: "On the night I delivered Mercy Harris of a bastard child, the King's soldiers burned the city's suburbs and fell back within its walls to await the rebel assault."

"From the very beginning, I was very lucky," says Thomas. "The first agent I contacted turned me down. . . . I sent out another round of queries and in a matter of days had a deal offer. Josh Getzler [of the Hannigan Salky Getzler Agency] said he loved my first sentence and protagonist and couldn't wait to read more."

Finding a publisher also went fast enough to make Thomas the envy of thousands of would-be authors.

"About two weeks after signing with Josh, we had a publishing deal," he says.

St. Martin's Press was so smitten with Thomas' midwife, in fact, that it has already ordered a sequel and is contemplating a third installment.

Thomas' second book is scheduled for early 2014 on St. Martin's Minotaur imprint, and book three is almost complete. The man who said he never dreamed of writing fiction until two years ago also says he plans to write a stand-alone book about witch-hunting in Colonial New England.

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